Republicans are hopeful that the British apprehension of the sky-bombing plotters will change the national mood significantly in their favor, though there is no hard evidence to substantiate that. The rule of thumb has been that the “War on Terror” replacing the “war in Iraq” is good news for the GOP.

The disappointing outcome (from both the U.S. and Israeli standpoints) of hostilities in Southern Lebanon appears to have no domestic political significance here. Republicans and Democrats are both so tied to support of Israeli decisions that nobody wants to second-guess even Israel’s questionable decisions, as they were rubberstamped in Washington (see below).

The major unknown political factor going into the mid-term election campaign is the economy. There is no sign of a precipitous decline in the next two and a half months that would seriously affect voting, but Republicans worry that people just don’t feel good about the economy — though this may be caused by non-economic factors. Tame inflation data this week are good news.

Republican colleagues in private have been writing off Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.) as a goner, but the latest polls show the race is competitive (see below). That means six Republican Senate seats are seriously endangered, but none is absolutely lost. Three Democratic seats are realistically vulnerable. Democrats must win a net of six seats to gain Senate control.

Sen. Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) has had so much trouble as majority leader that he has virtually fallen off the board as an ’08 presidential contender, but he is telling colleagues that he will make an effective run for the big prize after he is relieved of leadership duties in January.

In the meantime, we find that knowledgeable Republicans are very frightened about their prospects in House elections. It is extremely revealing that very few Republicans have released internal polls so far — and that some of them are sitting on polls they commissioned earlier, a sign that they do not like the results and do not want to make them public.

Right now, it is still at least challenging to construct a scenario of a 15-seat Democratic gain without positing some improbable upsets. But the great fear is that Democrats will reach critical mass in the next two months, with their challengers surging ahead of several GOP incumbents in close races. If that happens, Republicans will be forced into a more defensive posture, taking the heat off of a few Democratic incumbents.

Then Democrats will be able to put more resources into second-tier takeover targets, and then a wave begins to develop. Suddenly, Republican incumbents once thought safe could start to fall.

For this reason, the closeness of Roskam’s race against double-amputee Iraq War veteran Tammy Duckworth (D) has led to the campaign’s hiring of Jason Roe, chief of staff to Rep. Tom Feeney (R-Fla.), who ran former Rep. Jim Rogan‘s (R-Calif.) uphill (and unsuccessful) re-election campaign in 2000. Leaning Republican Retention.

Minnesota-1: The fear is that Rep. Gil Gutknecht (R) may fail to make the ballot based on a technicality involving the time during which he gathered petition signatures. The State Supreme Court will decide the issue. Gutknecht’s opponent in the primary, Greg Mickleson, has run in the past as a Green Party candidate, raising suspicions of chicanery.

If Gutknecht loses his lawsuit and is excluded from the September 12 primary, we are told by knowledgeable sources that there is nothing to stop him from running in the primary as a write-in candidate. And if he cannot win as a write-in in such a short period of time, he can also run in the general election as a write-in, since he will not have been on the ballot. Even if voters find it difficult to spell his name correctly, state election law requires election judges to consider the intent of voters.

The primary election falls on September 12, the last big primary day this year.

This result, coming so early, means a rough road ahead for Stabenow. It confirms our belief that this race, given little attention by most, will be one of the closest and one of the GOP’s best pickup chances for 2006. Leaning Democratic Retention.

As a person, Tester is a more attractive candidate than Morrison would have been. Still, the farmer-legislator with the unfashionable buzz haircut is not a conventional politician, and that hurts him to some degree. It is going to take much more work by him and the Democratic Party to win in a state that tends Republican in national elections. At the end of June, Burns was sitting on a four-to-one cash advantage (more than $2 million to Tester’s $512,000), and Burns has the same “unconventional,” folksy charm as Tester.

Burns has some momentum, but he is still in a very weak position for an incumbent, so we are not ready yet to change our outlook. Leaning Democratic Takeover.

The poll results come as a huge relief for Santorum, as there was already some talk among Washington fundraisers of money migrating away from this race because Santorum had failed to show he was closing the gap over the summer. That changes now.

Critical to this race is the entry of Green Party candidate Carl Romanelli, who gathered the required signatures with help from Santorum’s supporters. He draws five percent in the poll, a sure sign that discontent on the left with Casey’s pro-life posture threatens his campaign. But most troubling for Santorum is the fact that even as Casey suffers, his own numbers are not moving up. At around 40 percent, Santorum is in a very weak position for a two-term incumbent senator. Leaning Democratic Takeover.